Agile
Last updated on 2024-01-31 | Edit this page
Estimated time: 60 minutes
What is ‘Agile’
‘Agile’ is a project management methodology, particularly for software development, built around a 4 point philosophical manifesto and a 12 point set of principles.
Agile is typified by small teams that self-organise (‘scrum’) on how they will address a backlog of requested work, in short cycles (‘sprints’), by breaking problems into small tasks, with frequent feedback and result delivery. It is a highly iterative approach to planning, that allows for high flexibility and less forward planning. A sprint may last 1-4 weeks, in which time an entire cycle of planning, designing, implementing, testing and delivering takes place, with small tasks hopefully addressed to completion, followed by a review and retrospective that may or may not end up influencing the next sprint cycle.
Atlassian on scrums, Kanban and Jira visualisations
Key Points
- The Agile approach is to break problems into smaller tasks and fully address them in short, iterative work cycles (sprints), with each cycle ending in review and discussion before planning the next cycle.
- Aspects of this approach may be useful in data science work.